A fast painting of an image I've painted before in watercolour:

This is a design sketch for a new project I'm working on. The finished piece (one in a series of three) will be painted in pastel and have animated elements.

We thought there was a jackhammer going just outside our window tonight, but no, it was this woodpecker, trying to attract a mate by tapping on the tin roof of a lamp in our parking lot. After some research I found that this one is a male Red-shafted Northern Flicker. I was just saying that I needed to find some subject matter to paint from, and this guy arrived!

Today I did a fast painting (about forty minutes) using a photo from Sorano, Italy as reference. Capturing the quality and intensity of sunlight in Italy is certainly a challenge, but fun to try.

I've survived the perils of international art shipping, and I'm back to regular blogging. It's been quite nice playing with line and colour again after two days under a mountain of paperwork!

I'm still trying to get back on track with my blog after a busy stretch of client work.
In the meantime I thought I'd share the lengths I have to go to in order to grow herbs and vegetables from seed with two cats in the house. Needless to say, it's slightly more of a challenge, but well worth it when I get something green to grow!
This is my setup for the early seedling stage. I've taped two big spinach containers together to create a dome big enough to trap humidity and warmth around the seedlings, leaving room for them to grow big enough to sprout their second leaves:

After the seedlings have been transplanted into a peat container, they go up onto a shelf where hopefully they get enough light to grow strong. We've rigged the edge of the shelf with paper “extenders” wrapped in tinfoil to discourage the cats from climbing up and making salad of my tomato and spinach seedlings:

With a little luck these seedlings will become strong, flourishing veggies and herbs. I'll keep you posted!

A fast 'n loose pastel of Villa Cappella:

More play with digital conté on rough charcoal paper:

A fifteen minute sketch of a plant cutting that strangely, has stayed absolutely unchanged for more than a year at Mom's house:

I spent part of the day playing with digital conté on rough charcoal paper. This media might end up becoming addicting!